Elliot got an invitation to a ball this week.
It didn’t come gilt-edged, on creamy cardstock, with black ink calligraphy delineating the crisp outlines of his name. It wasn’t delivered by a footman in pale-blue livery, standing to attention on a coach-and-four.
Actually, it was a photocopy folded twice and stuck in his notebook. It was from the school, and was in fact an invitation to an end-of-school dance for the 4e and 3e (i.e. 8th and 9th grades), the 2 highest grades at the school, a sort of junior-senior affair. It’s called “une balle” and that makes me very happy.
Elliot does not want to go. “I don’t want to ask a girl, and everyone will be going as couples,” he says. “I don’t want to get dressed up.” Don’t ask a girl, we say. Go with your friends, as a group. We are sure that there will be plenty of others who go that way, and a friend whose daughter went to the same school says the same thing. We tell him, Wear that suit we bought you at a thrift store in England last summer for the murder mystery dinner you got invited to, where you ended up getting to be the detective.
He isn’t sure, but I am. The French schools don’t have dances like American schools do. They just have this one, and you only have 2 opportunities to go to it. He shouldn’t miss it.
Our lives are so transitional. I wrote that sentence and then set down my computer for a minute, and coming back I find it to have a deeper meaning than I intended. What I meant was simply that we have moved a lot in our time, and I’m all for the kids experiencing everything they can in whatever place we’re in. That’s true for our family in particular, but it’s true for all people anywhere. Get off the couch. Take a little risk. Go to the dance. Wear the thrift store suit—it’s surprisingly cute and fun. Don’t be shy.
And of course this advice comes in part because in 8th grade, I probably wouldn’t have gone to the ball.
I’ll let you know what happens. Maybe even with pictures, if such a thing proves possible.
15 comments
May 21, 2010 at 4:33 pm
owlfan
My son hesitated until the last minute about going to the 8th grade dance. Finally he decided to go and he had a BLAST. He had been worried that everyone would have dates, but no, many went alone or in groups and they danced in groups too. I’m so glad he went – and so is he!
May 21, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Kelly @ Love Well
It’s funny, isn’t it? Teenagers often appear to be irrepressible and spontaneous. And while that can be true, their self-consciousness is a burden. It’s only with age that we learn to not worry about yourself so much and just enjoy life.
May 21, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Rachel
Pictures please! And sounds fun…better to have gone then to have always wondered. 🙂
May 21, 2010 at 8:00 pm
shannon
I have bullied Cody into going to almost every dance during his high school years. Now that high school is almost over and he is going out into the real world soon, he is glad that I did.
May 21, 2010 at 8:06 pm
LIB
It’s amazing that the teens SEEM so self confident, with all their bluster, but they’re really just kids at heart. Kind of like adults, eh?
May 22, 2010 at 12:26 am
Nicole
Aw. I wonder if all the girls will be standing on one side of the room and the boys on the other for the first few hours.
May 22, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Jennifer, Snapshot
Oh we sound so much alike. I wouldn’t have gone either, and probably would have regretted it.
My 11-year-old however — she’s a joiner. She takes those risks and I admire her for it.
May 23, 2010 at 5:48 am
Rae
I so identify with this. Experience everything you can, whenever you can. Whenever I go back over the memories of my life, it is those few fleeting wonderful, packed in experiences that I remember anyways… I hope he goes. If he wants to…
May 23, 2010 at 5:59 am
meredith
La bal at Emma’s collège got cancelled this year due to travaux. But they do invite toutes les classes 6ème et 5ème aussi.
How’s that for a little franglais?
May 23, 2010 at 6:06 am
Linda
I wouldn’t have gone either. I’m so glad I’m not that age anymore although there are still parts inside me that are in the 8th grade. I guess those feelings never go away.
May 24, 2010 at 8:54 am
Nan
I hope he goes!
May 24, 2010 at 9:36 am
Kit
Definitely go with a group of friends – much more fun that way!
May 26, 2010 at 6:14 am
Jennifer
I keep writing emails to you and then afterward remembering that I don’t have your email address. Oop.
Hope the ball went well, if he went. I did go to a 9th grade “ball” when I was the new girl in town and just heartbreakingly shy, and the biggest dork in school asked me to go with him but I knew everyone thought was a dork and also, he was kind of annoying, so I went stag & just danced with him once. And now he’s friended me on Facebook. He writes really funny status updates. Go figure.
May 27, 2010 at 11:12 am
City of White Houses « Planet Nomad
[…] from my last post: The “balle” isn’t until the end of school, and all his friends are either going to be out of […]
May 28, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Paul Reilly
Hah I’m literally the only comment to this incredible read?!?